Fremont: Friends, colleagues, students honor former special ed teacher’s memory at vigil

Share this:

Friends of Nailah Pettigen, a retired special education teacher at American High School, gather for a candlelight vigil to remember her on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, at St. James Episcopal Church in Fremont, Calif. Pettigen was found dead in her Fremont home last week and her son has been arrested in connection to the crime. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group)

Candles and flowers light up the name of Nailah Pettigen, a retired special education teacher at American High School, at a candlelight vigil to remember her on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, at St. James Episcopal Church in Fremont, Calif. Pettigen was found dead in her Fremont home last week and her son has been arrested in connection to the crime. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group)

Jill Buono, at podium, reads a poem at a candlelight vigil for Nailah Pettigen, a retired special education teacher at American High School, on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, at St. James Episcopal Church in Fremont, Calif. Pettigen was found dead in her Fremont home last week and her son has been arrested in connection to the crime. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group)

FREMONT — The stars came out after sundown, one by one and then in small clusters, faintly visible above Monday night’s candlelight vigil for Nailah Pettigen outside St. James Episcopal Church.

The retired American High School special education instructor was found dead at her home Sept. 29, police said. Her 31-year-old son, Omar Malik Pettigen, was arrested in Kensington Sunday morning in connection with the slaying, authorities said.

With poetry and prayer, allegory and anecdote, a bit of Pettigen’s glow shone brightly Monday evening as dozens of teachers, current and former students and staff from the Fremont Unified School District gathered to light candles, stand briefly in silence and share small measures of solace.

“Nailah was the type of person who just brought people in,” said Fremont resident and St. James churchgoer Jill Buono, who helped a small group of friends organize tonight’s gathering. “She doesn’t care where you’re from, who you are, anything. If you are a good person, have a good heart, she draws you in your friendship and she respects you.”

Although Buono spoke in the present tense, many stories told Monday testified about Pettigen’s lasting presence in others’ lives.

“I tried to be just as good as her,” said Rochelle Hooks, who worked with Pettigen for three years. “I got a lot of ideas when I shared a room with her. Being a teacher, you’re kind of in your own island, you don’t really see what other teachers do, so sharing a room with her was a blessing.”

Hooks said she would go ahead with a trip to Haiti and Cuba she and Pettigen had planned.

“She would do the same, and she said one man doesn’t stop the party. I’m going to still go and miss her.”

Fremont Unified district spokesman Brian Killgore said the district had counselors available at American High for students and staff. Pettigen retired from the school in 2013.

“It takes some special employees to bridge gaps between a lot of languages, a lot of cultures, traditions, things like that,” Killgore said of instructors like Pettigen. “And very fortunately, we have that kind of staff that can reach out with all these people coming from different places, be it first-generation or second-generation and still make connections with them, educate them.”

Buono spoke of Pettigen’s legacy.

“She made it very clear that you should never take any one group of people and make a negative judgment on them,” Buono said. “You recognize that everyone in every group, no matter where the group is, they are individuals and they should be judged as individuals on their merit. And so she’s a teacher to us adults.”